Performance – Winsor and Gertie

March 26, 2019
Pfleghofsaal, Schulberg 2, Tuebingen 

Before there was Wallace and Gromit, before there was Mickey and Minnie, even before there was something called “movie cartoons,” there was Winsor and his Gertie. We present a 45-minute production that combines acting by live performers with restored classic films to transport us back into the turn-of-the-twentieth century. It was a world where comic strips and variety entertainment ruled, when cinema was still young, and an “animated cartoon” was an unheard-of novelty. The evening is introduced by a 20-minute lecture by animation historian Prof. Donald Crafton. 

Winsor McCay – Eftychia Charalampidou
Robert McCay – Tobias Kunz
Annunciator – Naima Alam
Narrator – Nils Stauch
Gertie – an animated dinosaur
Pete – an animated mastodon
Piano – Michael Dan

Playlet by Donald Crafton
Music by Gabriel Thibaudeau
Produced by Rada Bieberstein and Erwin Feyersinger 

Supported by Susanne Marschall, Department of Media Studies, and by Kurt Schneider, Zentrum für Medienkompetenz. In cooperation with the German-American Institute Tübingen. 

“Gertie“ is co-produced by the Cinémathèque québécoise and the National Film Board of Canada, with support from the University of Notre Dame. The performance is part of the Winter School “Doing Animation History” of the Department of Media Studies of the University of Tübingen. Contact: animationspam prevention@mewi.uni-tuebingen.de